Category: nanotech

Proliferation of graphene applications

The nature of graphene’s structure and its resulting traits are responsible for a tremendous burst of research focused on applications.

Find cancer cells. Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago showed that interfacing brain cells on the surface of a graphene sheet allows the ability to differentiate a single hyperactive cancerous cell from a normal cell. This represents a noninvasive technique for the early detection of cancer.

Graphene sheets capture cells efficiently. In research similar to that U. Illinois, modification of the graphene sheet by mild heating enables annealing of specific targets/analytes on the sheet which then can be tested. This, too, offers noninvasive diagnostics.

Contact lens coated with graphene. While the value of the development is yet to be seen, researchers in Korea have learned that contact lenses coated with graphene are able to shield wearers’ eyes from electromagnetic radiation and dehydration.

Cheaply mass-producing graphene using soybeans. A real hurdle to graphene’s widespread use in a variety of applications is the cost to mass produce it, but Australia’s CSIRO has shown that an ambient air process to produce graphene from soybean oil, which is likely to accelerate graphenes’ development for commercial use.

Materials

Advanced materials development teams globally are spinning out new materials that have highly specialized features, with the ability to be manufactured under tight control.

3D manufacturing leads to highly complex, bio-like materials. With applications across many industries using “any material that can be crushed into nanoparticles”, University of Washington research has demonstrated the ability to 3D engineer complex structures, including for use as biological scaffolds.

Hydrogels and woven fiber fabric. Hokkaido University researchers have produced woven polyampholyte (PA) gels reinforced with glass fiber. Materials made this way have the structural and dynamic features to make them amenable for use in artificial ligaments and tendons.

Sound-shaping metamaterial. Research teams at the Universities of Sussex and Bristol have developed acoustic metamaterials capable of creating shaped sound waves, a development that will have a potentially big impact on medical imaging.

Organ-on-a-chip

In vitro testing models that more accurately reflect biological systems for drug testing and development will facilitate clinical diagnostics and clinical research.

Stem cells derived neuronal networks grown on a chip. Scientists at the University of Bern have developed an in vitro stem cell-based bioassay grown on multi-electrode arrays capable of detecting the biological activity of Clostridium botulinum neurotoxins.

Used for mimicking heart’s biomechanical properties. At Vanderbilt University, scientists have developed an organ-on-a-chip configuration that mimics the heart’s biomechanical properties. This will enable drug testing to gauge impact on heart function.

Used for offering insights on premature aging, vascular disease. Brigham and Women’s Hospital has developed organ-on-a-chip model designed to study progeria (Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome), which primarily affects vascular cells, making this an affective method for the first time to simultaneously study vascular diseases and aging.

Medtech and biotech investment is driven by an expectation of returns, but rapid advances in technology simultaneously drive excitement for their application while increasing the uncertainty in what is needed to bring those applications in the market.

MedMarket Diligence has tracked technology developments and trends in advanced medical technologies, inclusive of medical devices and the range of other technologies — in biotech, pharma, others — that impact, drive, limit, or otherwise affect markets for the management of disease and trauma. This broader perspective on new developments and a deeper understanding of their limitations is important for a couple of reasons:

Healthcare systems and payers are demanding competitive cost and outcomes for specific patient populations, irrespective of technology type — it’s the endpoint that matters. This forces medical devices into de facto competition with biotech, pharma, and others.

Many new technologies have dramatically pushed the boundaries on what medicine can potentially accomplish, from the personalized medicine enabled by genomics, these advances have served to create bigger gaps between scientific advance and commercial reality, demanding deeper understanding of the science.

The rapid pace of technology development across all these sectors and the increasing complexity of the underlying science are factors complicating the development, regulatory approval, and market introduction of advanced technologies. The unexpected size and number of the hurdles to bring these complex technologies to the market have been responsible for investment failures, such as:

Theranos. Investors were too ready to believe the disruptive ideas of its founder, Elizabeth Holmes. When it became clear that data did not support the technology, the value of the company plummeted.

Juno Therapeutics. The Seattle-based gene therapy company lost substantial share value after three patients died on a clinical trial for the company’s cell therapy treatments that were just months away from receiving regulatory approval in the US.

A ZS Associates study in 2016 showed that 81% of medtech companies struggle to receive an adequate return on investment

As a result, investment in biotech took a correctional hit in 2016 to deflate overblown expectations. Medtech, for its part, has seen declining investment, especially at early stages, reflecting an aversion to uncertainty in commercialization.

Below are clinical and technology areas that we see demonstrating growth and investment opportunity, but still represent challenges for executives to navigate their remaining development and commercialization obstacles:

Cell therapies

Parkinson’s disease

Type I diabetes

Arthritis

Burn victims

Cardiovascular diseases

Diabetes

Artificial pancreas

Non-invasive blood glucose measurement

Tissue engineering and regeneration

3D printed organs

Brain-computer and other nervous system interfaces

Nerve-responsive prosthetics

Interfaces for patients with locked-in syndrome to communicate

Interfaces to enable (e.g., Stentrode) paralyzed patients to control devices

Robotics

Robotics in surgery (advancing, despite costs)

Robotic nurses

Optogenetics: light modulated nerve cells and neural circuits

Gene therapy

CRISPR

Localized drug delivery

Immuno-oncology

Further accelerated by genomics and computational approaches

Immune modulators, vaccines, adoptive cell therapies (e.g., CAR-T)

Drug development

Computational approaches to accelerate the evaluation of drug candidates

Organ-on-a-chip technologies to decrease the cost of drug testing

Impact on investment

Seed stage and Series A investment in med tech is down, reflecting an aversion to early stage uncertainty.

Acquisitions of early stage companies, by contrast, are up, reflecting acquiring companies to gain more control over the uncertainty

Need for critical insight and data to ensure patient outcomes at best costs

Costs of development, combined with uncertainty, demand that if the idea’s upside potential is only $10 million, then it’s time to find another idea

While better analysis of the hurdles to commercialization of advanced innovations will support investment, many medtech and biotech companies may opt instead for growth of established technologies into emerging markets, where the uncertainty is not science-based

Below is illustrated the fundings by category in 2015 and 2016, which showed a consistent drop from 2015 to 2016, driven by a widely acknowledged correction in biotech investment in 2016.

*For the sake of comparing other segments, the wound fundings above exclude the $1.8 billion IPO of Convatec in 2016.

In reviewing patents, fundings, technology development trends, market development, and other hard data sources, we feel these are some of the strongest areas for investment in not only the medical device side of medtech, but also the broader biomedical technology arena:

In addition, there are many areas in healthcare in which there is much untapped demand with problems that, so far, seem to have eluded medtech solutions. These include infection control (Zika, MRSA, TB, nosocomial infections, etc.), chronic wound treatment (including decubitus/stasis/diabetic ulcers), type 2 diabetes and obesity.

In catheterization, a doctor can poke a hole in your leg and fix your heart.

Radiosurgery can destroy a tumor and leave adjacent tissue untouched, touching the body only with energy.

A doctor thousands of miles away can do surgery on you via telepresence and robotic instrumentation.

Medical device implants like stents have been developed to simply dissolve over time.

Doctors can see cancer via live imaging during operations to ensure that they excise it all.

Type 1 diabetics may soon be able to so easily manage their condition, via combined insulin pump / glucometer that they may almost forget they have diabetes (or cell therapy may cure them!), while Type 2 diabetics will grow in number and cost to manage.

Organs are already being printed, as are other tissue implants.

Neuroprosthetics, exoskeletons and related technologies are enabling wheelchair-bound and other physically challenged people to walk upright, allowing amputees to control prosthetics with their mind,

Almost two-thirds of the 7,000 medical device firms in the United States have fewer than 20 employees — Medtronic employs all the rest. (OK, that’s an exaggeration.)

Science fiction continues to drive the imagination of medtech innovators. Decentralized diagnostics — very small, efficient devices in the hands of a doctor that will rapidly assist in diagnoses and expedite the process of intervention — are becoming pervasive, ideally embodied in the fictional “tricorder” in Star Trek.

An important determinant of “where medicine will be” in 2035 is the set of dynamics and forces behind healthcare delivery systems, including primarily the payment method, especially regarding reimbursement. It is clear that some form of reform in healthcare will result in a consolidation of the infrastructure paying for and managing patient populations. The infrastructure is bloated and expensive, unnecessarily adding to costs that neither the federal government nor individuals can sustain. This is not to say that I predict movement to a single payer system — that is just one perceived solution to the problem. There are far too many costs in healthcare that offer no benefits in terms of quality; indeed, such costs are a true impediment to quality. Funds that go to infrastructure (insurance companies and other intermediaries) and the demands they put on healthcare delivery work directly against quality of care. So, in the U.S., whether Obamacare persists (most likely) or is replaced with a single payer system, state administered healthcare (exchanges) or some other as-yet-unidentified form, there will be change in how healthcare is delivered from a cost/management perspective.

From the clinical practice and technology side, there will be enormous changes to healthcare. Here are examples of what I see from tracking trends in clinical practice and medical technology development:

Cancer 5 year survival rates will, for many cancers, be well over 90%. Cancer will largely be transformed in most cases to chronic disease that can be effectively managed by surgery, immunology, chemotherapy and other interventions. Cancer and genomics, in particular, has been a lucrative study (see The Cancer Genome Atlas). Immunotherapy developments are also expected to be part of many oncology solutions. Cancer has been a tenacious foe, and remains one we will be fighting for a long time, but the fight will have changed from virtually incapacitating the patient to following protocols that keep cancer in check, if not cure/prevent it.

Diabetes Type 1 (juvenile onset) will be managed in most patients by an “artificial pancreas”, a closed loop glucometer and insulin pump that will self-regulate blood glucose levels. OR, stem cell or other cell therapies may well achieve success in restoring normal insulin production and glucose metabolism in Type 1 patients. The odds are better that a practical, affordable artificial pancreas will developed than stem or other cell therapy, but both technologies are moving aggressively and will gain dramatic successes within 20 years.

Developments in the field of the “artificial pancreas” have recently gathered considerable pace, such that, by 2035, type 1 blood glucose management may be no more onerous than a house thermostat due to the sophistication and ease-of-use made possible with the closed loop, biofeedback capabilities of the integrated glucometer, insulin pump and the algorithms that drive it, but that will not be the end of the development of better options for type 1 diabetics. Cell therapy for type 1 diabetes, which may be readily achieved by one or more of a wide variety of cellular approaches and product forms (including cell/device hybrids) may well have progressed by 2035 to become another viable alternative for type 1 diabetics.

Diabetes Type 2 (adult onset) will be a significant problem governed by different dynamics than Type 1. A large body of evidence will exist that shows dramatically reduced incidence of Type 2 associated with obesity management (gastric bypass, satiety drugs, etc.) that will mitigate the growing prevalence of Type 2, but research into pharmacologic or other therapies may at best achieve only modest advances. The problem will reside in the complexity of different Type 2 manifestation, the late onset of the condition in patients who are resistant to the necessary changes in lifestyle and the global epidemic that will challenge dissemination of new technologies and clinical practices to third world populations.

Despite increasing levels of attention being raised to the burden of type 2 worldwide, including all its sequellae (vascular, retinal, kidney and other diseases), the pace of growth globally in type 2 is still such that it will represent a problem and target for pharma, biotech, medical device, and other disciplines.

Cell therapy and tissue engineering will offer an enormous number of solutions for conditions currently treated inadequately, if at all. Below is an illustration of the range of applications currently available or in development, a list that will expand (along with successes in each) over the next 20 years.

Cell therapy will have deeply penetrated virtually every medical specialty by 2035. Most advanced will be those that target less complex tissues: bone, muscle, skin, and select internal organ tissues (e.g., bioengineered bladder, others). However, development will have also followed the money. Currently, development and use of conventional technologies in areas like cardiology, vascular, and neurology entails high expenditure that creates enormous investment incentive that will drive steady development of cell therapy and tissue engineering over the next 20 years, with the goal of better, long-term and/or less costly solutions.

Gene therapy will be an option for a majority of genetically-based diseases (especially inherited diseases) and will offer clinical options for non-inherited conditions. Advances in the analysis of inheritance and expression of genes will also enable advanced interventions to either ameliorate or actually preempt the onset of genetic disease.As the human genome is the engineering plans for the human body, it is a potential mother lode for the future of medicine, but it remains a complex set of plans to elucidate and exploit for the development of therapies. While genetically-based diseases may readily be addressed by gene therapies in 2035, the host of other diseases that do not have obvious genetic components will resist giving up easy gene therapy solutions. Then again, within 20 years a number of reasonable advances in understanding and intervention could open the gate to widespread “gene therapy” (in some sense) for a breadth of diseases and conditions –> Case in point, the recent emergence of the gene-editing technology, CRISPR, has set the stage for practical applications to correct genetically-based conditions.

Drug development will be dramatically more sophisticated, reducing the development time and cost while resulting in drugs that are far more clinically effective (and less prone to side effects). This arises from drug candidates being evaluated via distributed processing systems (or quantum computer systems) that can predict efficacy and side effect without need of expensive and exhaustive animal or human testing.The development of effective drugs will have been accelerated by both modeling systems and increases in our understanding of disease and trauma, including pharmacogenomics to predict drug response. It may not as readily follow that the costs will be reduced, something that may only happen as a result of policy decisions.

Most surgical procedures will achieve the ability to be virtually non-invasive. Natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES) will enable highly sophisticated surgery without ever making an abdominal or other (external) incision. Technologies like “gamma knife” and similar will have the ability to destroy tumors or ablate pathological tissue via completely external, energy-based systems.By 2035, technologies such as these will measurably reduce inpatient stays, on a per capita basis, since a significant reason for overnight stays is the trauma requiring recovery, and eliminating trauma is a major goal and advantage of minimally invasive technologies (e.g., especially the NOTES technology platform). A wide range of other technologies (e.g., gamma knife, minimally invasive surgery/intervention, etc.) across multiple categories (device, biotech, pharma) will also have emerged and succeeded in the market by producing therapeutic benefit while minimizing or eliminating collateral damage.

Information technology will radically improve patient management. Very sophisticated electronic patient records will dramatically improve patient care via reduction of contraindications, predictive systems to proactively manage disease and disease risk, and greatly improve the decision-making of physicians tasked with diagnosing and treating patients.There are few technical hurdles to the advancement of information technology in medicine, but even in 2035, infotech is very likely to still be facing real hurdles in its use as a result of the reluctance in healthcare to give up legacy systems and the inertia against change, despite the benefits.

Personalized medicine. Perfect matches between a condition and its treatment are the goal of personalized medicine, since patient-to-patient variation can reduce the efficacy of off-the-shelf treatment. The thinking behind gender-specific joint replacement has led to custom-printed 3D implants. The use of personalized medicine will also be manifested by testing to reveal potential emerging diseases or conditions, whose symptoms may be ameliorated or prevented by intervention before onset.

Systems biology will underlie the biology of most future medical advances in the next 20 years. Systems biology is a discipline focused on an integrated understanding of cell biology, physiology, genetics, chemistry, and a wide range of other individual medical and scientific disciplines. It represents an implicit recognition of an organism as an embodiment of multiple, interdependent organ systems and its processes, such that both pathology and wellness are understood from the perspective of the sum total of both the problem and the impact of possible solutions.This orientation will be intrinsic to the development of medical technologies, and will increasingly be represented by clinical trials that throw a much wider and longer-term net around relevant data, staff expertise encompassing more medical/scientific disciplines, and unforeseen solutions that present themselves as a result of this approach.Other technologies being developed aggressively now will have an impact over the next twenty years, including medical/surgical robots (or even biobots), neurotechnologies to diagnose, monitor, and treat a wide range of conditions (e.g., spinal cord injury, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s etc.).

The breadth and depth of advances in medicine over the next 20 years will be extraordinary, since many doors have been recently opened as a result of advances in genetics, cell biology, materials science, systems biology and others — with the collective advances further stimulating both learning and new product development.

See the 2016 report #290, “Worldwide Markets for Medical and Surgical Sealants, Glues, and Hemostats, 2015-2022.”

Medical technology is, for many of its markets, being forced to look for growth from more sources, including emerging markets. Manufacturers are able to gain better margins through innovation, but their success varies by clinical application.

Cardiology. A demanding patient base (it’s life or death). Be that as it may, there are few new or untapped markets, only the opportunity for new technologies to displace existing markets. Interventional technologies are progressively enabling treatment of larger patient populations, but much growth will still be from emerging markets.

Wound management. Even the most well-established markets will see growth from innovation. The wound market just needs less growth to be happy, since small percentage growth becomes very large by volume. And yet, some of the most significant growth in the long run will be for more advanced

Surgery. Every aspect of surgery seems to be subject to attempts to improve upon it. Robotics, endoscopy, transcatheter, single-port, incisionless, natural orifice. Interventional options are increasing the treatable patient population, and it seems likely that continued development (e.g., materials, including biodegradables, use of drug or other coatings, including cells) will yield more routine procedures for more and different types of conditions, many of which have been inadequately served, if it all.

Orthopedics. Aging populations demanding more agility and mobility will drive orthopedic procedures and device use. Innovation still represents some upside, but more from 3D printing than other new technologies being introduced to practice.

Tissue/Cell Therapy. This is a technology opportunity (and represents radical innovation for most clinical areas), but it is also a set of target clinical applications, since tissues/cells are being engineered to address tissue or cell trauma or disease. Growth is displacing existing markets with new technology, such as bioengineered skin, tendons, bladders, bone, cardiac tissue, etc. These are fundamentally radical technologies for the target applications.

Mechanical stress factors include pressure, shear, and friction. Pressure can result from immobility, such as experienced by a bed- or chair-bound patient, or local pressures generated by a cast or poorly fitting shoe on a diabetic foot. When pressure is applied to an area for sufficient time and duration, blood flow to the area is compromised and healing cannot take place. Shear forces may occlude blood vessels, and disrupt or damage granulation tissue. Friction wears away newly formed epithelium or granulation tissue and may return the wound to the inflammatory phase.

Debris, such as necrotic tissue or foreign material, must be removed from the wound site in order to allow the wound to progress from the inflammatory stage to the proliferative stage of healing. Necrotic debris includes eschar and slough. The removal of necrotic tissue is called debridement and may be accomplished by mechanical, chemical, autolytic, or surgical means. Foreign material may include sutures, dressing residues, fibers shed by dressings, and foreign material which were introduced during the wounding process, such as dirt or glass.

Temperature controls the rate of chemical and enzymatic processes occurring within the wound and the metabolism of cells and tissue engaged in the repair process. Frequent dressing changes or wound cleansing with room temperature solutions may reduce wound temperature, often requiring several hours for recovery to physiological levels. Thus, wound dressings that promote a “cooling” effect, while they may help to decrease pain, may not support wound repair.

Desiccation of the wound surface removes the physiological fluids that support wound healing activity. Dry wounds are more painful, itchy, and produce scab material in an attempt to reduce fluid loss. Cell proliferation, leukocyte activity, wound contraction, and revascularization are all reduced in a dry environment. Epithelialization is drastically slowed in the presence of scab tissue that forces epithelial cells to burrow rather than freely migrate over granulation tissue. Advanced wound dressings provide protection against desiccation.

Maceration resulting from prolonged exposure to moisture may occur from incontinence, sweat accumulation, or excess exudates. Maceration can lead to enlargement of the wound, increased susceptibility to mechanical forces, and infection. Advanced wound products are designed to remove sources of moisture, manage wound exudates, and protect skin at the edges of the wound from exposure to exudates, incontinence, or perspiration.

Infection at the wound site will ensure that the healing process remains in the inflammatory phase. Pathogenic microbes in the wound compete with macrophages and fibroblasts for limited resources and may cause further necrosis in the wound bed. Serious wound infection can lead to sepsis and death. While all ulcers are considered contaminated, the diagnosis of infection is made when the wound culture demonstrates bacterial counts in excess of 105 microorganisms per gram of tissue. The clinical signs of wound infection are erythema, heat, local swelling, and pain.

Chemical stress is often applied to the wound through the use of antiseptics and cleansing agents. Routine, prolonged use of iodine, peroxide, chlorhexidine, alcohol, and acetic acid has been shown to damage cells and tissue involved in wound repair. Their use is now primarily limited to those wounds and circumstances when infection risk is high. The use of such products is rapidly discontinued in favor of using less cytotoxic agents, such as saline and nonionic surfactants.

Medication may have significant effects on the phases of wound healing. Anti-inflammatory drugs such as steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may reduce the inflammatory response necessary to prepare the wound bed for granulation. Chemotherapeutic agents affect the function of normal cells as well as their target tumor tissue; their effects include reduction in the inflammatory response, suppression of protein synthesis, and inhibition of cell reproduction. Immunosuppressive drugs reduce WBC counts, reducing inflammatory activities and increasing the risk of wound infection.

Other extrinsic factors that may affect wound healing include alcohol abuse, smoking, and radiation therapy. Alcohol abuse and smoking interfere with body’s defense system, and side effects from radiation treatments include specific disruptions to the immune system, including suppression of leukocyte production that increases the risk of infection in ulcers. Radiation for treatment of cancer causes secondary complications to the skin and underlying tissue. Early signs of radiation side effects include acute inflammation, exudation, and scabbing. Later signs, which may appear four to six months after radiation, include woody, fibrous, and edematous skin. Advanced radiated skin appearances can include avascular tissue and ulcerations in the circumscribed area of the original radiation. The radiated wound may not become evident until as long as 10-20 years after the end of therapy.

We see three key forces underlying investment trends in medical technology:

The spectrum of competition has been broadened and sometimes isn’t even obvious.

Widely different technologies (as in treatment of coronary artery disease, see white paper) can address a clinical condition, with the solution to the problem being the focus of new investment.

New materials for devices, drug-device hybrids, biotech-driven solutions, and other innovations can create competition between very different technologies. As a result, the paradigms and truths that held true in the past, when devices only went head-to-head with devices, are no longer relevant, creating the need to better assess the competitive landscape.

Manufacturers must there develop good market awareness, as in being cognizant of all the potential source of competition, such as from companies in adjacent markets who might pivot and seize market share.

Money flows to niches in medtech where the demand for clinical utility is high.

The biggest forces driving medtech are increasing patient populations or the cost of managing them. Niches that address the challenges of an older population with unsolved painful and or costly conditions (orthopedics, chronic wounds, diabetes, bariatrics) have prominent cost targets that stimulate investment.

Patient demographics, healthcare cost/utility demands and other forces make some medtech niches very attractive, even if only as a result of technology migration (e.g., to growth geo markets).

Underserved patient populations command almost as much attention as the untapped patient populations.

There is much potential return on investment to be made in blockbuster treatments, but these can be financial sinkholes compared to less grandiose technology solutions. A motive force exists in medtech, centered around healthcare costs, that is relentlessly forcing medical technology innovators to find opportunity within existing markets, by eliminating cost (e.g., shifting care to outpatient as via minimally invasive technologies). Significant medical technology investment has already recognized the value in targeting conditions for which new technology, new clinical practices and/or simply new ways of thinking can improve the quality of life, patient costs or both.

Medtech investment is most serious when it is (1) in high dollar value, or (2) tied to the formation of companies. It reflects confidence in that sector to the degree set by the investment.

In the past five years, MedMarket Diligence has tracked the identification of over 600 companies in medtech. Below is the distribution of their focus across a large number of clinical and technology areas (multiple possible, as in “minimally invasive” and “orthomusculoskeletal”).

These companies have also been tracked through their specific investments (detailed historically at link).

Cardiology, orthopedics, and surgery are mainstay drivers of new technology development in medtech, as has been the push for minimally invasive therapies, but nanotechnology, interventional (e.g., transcatheter) technologies, biomaterials, wound management and other niches have a steady stream of new company formations.

See recent reports from MedMarket Diligence in the following clinical areas.